Awareness campaign has already led to 40,000 extra receiving Pension Credit

Maybe that wonderful tv advert is partly responsible.

You can just check online. Waste of time filling in forms when a couple of clicks will tell you whether you can get it.

Do you mean the "Thank You For The Days" one MayBee?

Primrose53

You can just check online. Waste of time filling in forms when a couple of clicks will tell you whether you can get it.

Primrose - It is not necessarily a waste of time! There are many things you may not know about and the "couple of clicks" can't tell you.

As I understand it they are using the forms to point to other additional or separate help. If we all filled in such a form on applying for State Pension Benefit governments would have a much better idea of who they need to help and how best to do it.

Thinking you know all about this complex benefit does not help anyone. Applying may, as may asking those supporting the elderly rather than trying to pass on your own negative feelings.

Its a good advert, encourages family to help out too.

Excellent news. Pension credit was so important for my mother so that's a great result.

Very good news. More people that need help getting it.

It is great news but just a little worrying that 40,000 people, who should have been getting it, hadn't applied.

Each year some people fall unknowing into Pension Credit eligability. When the government started campaigning they thought that as many as 880,000 pensioners might missing out! There's a long way to go.

I really wonder why this was not promoted, on TV every so often, and well before the withdrawal of the WFA.
Before anyone jumps on me, I am pleased that those who can have it have managed to be successful, but it doesn't help anyone just a few pennies over the threshold that cannot claim any extra benefits. No not myself, I'm one of the lucky ones, unless of course Milliband gets his way and sees us all in penury.

Its been pushed quite hard all these months by a number of organisations definitely including political ones.

Including letters sent to every pensioner about WFA and advising on Pension Credit.

As on this October thread in GN
www.gransnet.com/forums/legal_and_money/a1341666-Has-everyone-received-a-letter-from-Dwp-regarding-WFP

Pension Credit is advertised on TV Freya5 but going by other threads, most GNs don’t watch or take notice of any ads,

Freya5

I really wonder why this was not promoted, on TV every so often, and well before the withdrawal of the WFA.
Before anyone jumps on me, I am pleased that those who can have it have managed to be successful, but it doesn't help anyone just a few pennies over the threshold that cannot claim any extra benefits. No not myself, I'm one of the lucky ones, unless of course Milliband gets his way and sees us all in penury.

Every year some who are "just a few pennies over" fall into the eligability band. People in this position should claim each year when the Pension Credit increases.

There are also other benefits you should be receiving either a whole or proportion of. Being a few pounds over - if that is literally the case - should not stop you getting some help. Other benefit income, such as housing, council tax assistance, AA are not counted as income by the way.

If your claim fails, ask (very nicely, they are only doing their job) why it did. It's better to know than to guess.

What are you expecting Miliband to do to the State Pension Freya5?

Wyllow3

Its been pushed quite hard all these months by a number of organisations definitely including political ones.

Including letters sent to every pensioner about WFA and advising on Pension Credit.

As on this October thread in GN
www.gransnet.com/forums/legal_and_money/a1341666-Has-everyone-received-a-letter-from-Dwp-regarding-WFP

Yes, Wyllow. The idea of means-testing the SFA was to encourage more people to claim Pension Credit, and get help with their bills, whilst stopping giving money for others to use as holiday money or to buy Christmas drinks.

Yes, there will be those just above the limit who suffer - means-tests always do this. And there will be a feeling (justified IMO) that it's not worth bothering to work when if you don't you will be put in the same position as if you had, but at least this way more people are learning how to claim, and more about the way the system works. If more than 800,000 weren't getting it under the last government then this is a huge step forward for this one.

I'm not sure how it could have been advertised well before the WFA changes, as they were announced very soon after the start of the new parliament. Obviously the Tories could have advertised it on TV every so often over the past 14 years, but for some reason they didn't. That's not on RR and KS though.

According to analysis by the BBC many of those who have applied for pension credit won't receive it due to the backlog which stretches way back.

That is very good news. I do think that there should have been an income limit set a bit above the personal allowance because many with small private or employment pensions will find it difficult. The LP keep telling us that the triple lock is still in place but the increase in the state pension won't happen until April which doesn't help those having to pay winter fuel bills.

The Ministry of Economics and Finance has contacted people asking them to check to see if they qualify for a winter fuel cheque. All I had to do was to click a button, give my tax reference and I would be told if we would qualify. Sadly we didn't, but I wasn't expecting to.

In any event the cost of electricity is coming down in 2025, partly because 3 of the nuclear reactors which had been closed for repair etc for a number of years are coming back on stream.

This is true. People were facing long delays in March 2024 even before the elections and I noticed reports of delays back in 2014.

I checked and you do get it backdated from point of application and sometimes up to 3 months before that, but its not a lot of short term help.

DWP needed to be given extra capacity for some time.

Sorry, I don't know where I got 800,000 from! I meant 40,000 .

While any increase in sucessful claims is to be applauded we should also be aware that the majority of new claims are failling:

Comparing the 16-week periods before and after the announcement {withdrawal of universal WFP], the number of Pension Credit claims awarded has increased by 17% (from 36,400 to 42,500), alongside a 96% increase in the number of Pension Credit claims not awarded (from 27,100 to 53,100).

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pension-credit-applications-and-awards-november-2024/pension-credit-applications-and-awards-november-2024--2#:~:text=Comparing%20the%2016%2Dweek%20periods,(from%2027%2C100%20to%2053%2C100).

Successive governments have been trying to drive up claims for years. When Gordon Brown first introduced the Winter Fuel Payment in 1997 he said in his speech:

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women [Harriet Harman] is announcing today that she will finance several projects to find the best way in which to encourage improved benefits take-up by the poorest pensioners, so that they receive what they need.

It's more or less what Reeves said 27 years later.

One of the reasons WFP remained a universal benefit for so long was precisely because people are so reluctant to claim. It has long been recognised that WFP wasn’t targeting those in genuine fuel poverty but what can be done if people won’t claim?

Listen to BBC More or Less from 25 September 2024:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00237n0

Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb describes a pilot scheme where the Government identified people they thought should be claiming Pension Credit, actually put money into their accounts then wrote to them encouraging them to claim. Still they didn’t. Listen at 7 minutes.

The previous Government ran a Pension Credit awareness week from June 12–16 2023 writing to some households directly inviting them to claim.

I am somewhat sceptical about the 880,000 now said to be eligible. Like most surveys done by or on behalf of government, the sample sizes are tiny compared to the extrapolated numbers that result and there a high degree of uncertainty.

For example, the 2004 survey about awareness of State Pension age (following the changes in the Pensions Act 1995) surveyed only 1039 women who were affected by the changes and found that only 43% were aware of their new SPA. There are said to be 3.5 million “WASPIs”.

The 90% awareness figure that the Govemment is now using as an excuse for not paying WASPi compensation comes from a 2006 survey of only 79 people, both men and women, very few of whom fell within the WASPI demographic. The survey wasn’t even about equalisation but general attitudes to pensions.

The number 880,000 comes from this:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2024/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2024

The sample size was only 16,000 households from a total of 28.2 million in the UK so the sample size was less than 0.06% of the total number of pensions. Not 6%. Not 0.6% but only 0.06%.

From that small sample the DWP reckoned that only six out of ten households eligible to claim were receiving Pension Credit.

Statistics published by the DWP in February 2024 said there were 1.4 million households receiving Pension Credit. 66% of those were women.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2024/dwp-benefits-statistics-february-2024

Single female pensioners are the poorest pensioners. In 2023, average income after housing costs (AHC) was pensioner couples was £561 pw, single male pensioners £286 pw, single female pensioners £259 pw:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2023/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2023

So, a single women had an income of £27 per week less a single male pensioner and £302 per week less than a couple. It’s why the withdrawal of universal WFP will hit single women pensioners hardest, those whose incomes are just over the £218.15 pw limit for PC.

What I find depressing about this is that if the 880,000 is anywhere close to being accurate then that means that something around 20% of pensioners households have an income so low that they need to claim Pension Credit. It's a sad indictment of just how low the State Pension is.

Doodledog

Sorry, I don't know where I got 800,000 from! I meant 40,000 .

No I didn't. 40k is the number who have claimed recently. i am having a series of senior moments today 😂.

Anyway. If more people are claiming it, that will mitigate the loss of the WFA as a universal benefit, which has to be a good thing.

I'm going for a lie down now

TerriBull

According to analysis by the BBC many of those who have applied for pension credit won't receive it due to the backlog which stretches way back.

I'm not sure they put it quite like that Terribull although they must have be pretty overwhelmed.

Just for general knowledge you usually can only backdate a claim by three months so do tell those you know not to wait!

If the DWP delay there MAY be compensatory payments. Also those who help claimants, such as Age UK, are regularly in touch with Pension Services so theY do know what is happening.

TerriBull

According to analysis by the BBC many of those who have applied for pension credit won't receive it due to the backlog which stretches way back.

I heard that.A woman who applied for it in September still hasn’t got it and applying for the WFA ended at midnight the other night.

I think they moved some staff to catch up in other areas Wyllow3. The problem is the whole of the system is creaking under the constant underfunding by the last governments. So if you try and help in one area, another creaks even more.

This is equally true in Councils, Education, The NHS, etc. This government have a very difficult row to how.

hoe!

PoliticsNerd

Do you mean the "Thank You For The Days" one MayBee?

Yes. I used to do market research. There’s a lot of thought gone into that advert and it works on two levels, both aiming at people of my age and our kids. It’s one of those adverts that, every time it comes on I have to stop what I’m doing and watch it. And, each time I do it makes me smile. My MP has been doing a lot to promote pension credit, too, and help people to apply for it. We’ve had years of comments on gransnet about how ridiculous it is to hand out money to people that don’t need it; something needed to be done about it. Personally it made me make an effort to get a better tariff from my energy company, I’ve improved the insulation in my house in a few simple ways and I’m turning lights off etc. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I received the WFP but, even though I only have a small pension I didn’t really need it.